Beverley Turner, wife of James Cracknell talks about being eight months
pregnant as her husband races across the South Pole with Ben Fogle.

Once again, Beverley Turner has been left holding the baby. Three years ago, when her husband James Cracknell went off to row the Atlantic with the television explorer Ben Fogle, she was left alone with their two-year-old, Croyde. That didn't go down well – not least, because Cracknell hadn't dared consult her before signing up for the race; he'd just left the entry forms around for her to find. "I married a rower – I didn't marry Sir Ranulph Fiennes," she remarked then, pointing out ominously that 70 per cent of sportsmen's marriages ended in divorce.

This time, Cracknell did at least consult her before embarking on the Amundsen Omega 3 race to the South Pole, forming the third member of Team QinetiQ with Ben Fogle and a doctor, Ed Coats. She gave her permission for him to go but the timing has scarcely been perfect. Not only is she looking after Croyde, now 5, on her own, she is also eight months pregnant. But she's not fuming, only worried.

"How big does a blister have to be before a foot has to be amputated?" she asks. "How many painkillers do you have to take before you permanently damage your liver? When does frostnip mean – it sounds pretty terrifying." We have been listening to a recording of Cracknell talking via satellite phone, and she's been surprised by the pain he is suffering. "He's obviously in far worse shape than I realised," she says, alarmed. "He sounds like he wants to get the hell out of there."

He won't give up though, no matter what. He started the second half of the race last week exhausted, but he and his team-mates are giving their all to reach the Pole. With only a few days to go, the Norwegians are ahead, but, she says: "It sound like he's following his old Olympic coach's axiom:'If you can stand on the podium at the end, you haven't tried hard enough.'"

Turner, 35, worries about her 36-year-old husband. But while he's been away her focus has been on Croyde. "Every day he says, 'I miss my Daddy.'" she says. "He doesn't want to look at pictures of James on the website. It is a bit scary seeing him fighting through blizzards. When I have shown him, he gets cross and says: 'I want daddy to come out of the computer.'

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"I want him to feel daddy's doing something special. It's hard for a five-year -old to understand but I tell him that daddy's very brave and that he's helping poorly children after what happened to James's sister." [Cracknell is raising money for the charity Sparks, which researches childhood medical conditions, because his sister's child died soon after birth.] Despite his beefcake appearance – lantern jaw, huge shoulders, 6ft 4in of pure muscle – Cracknell is a thoughtful, sensitive man who has made a kind of advent calendar for his son, with a door to open on each day he is away containing a little message. Nevertheless Croyde minds his father's absence in a way he didn't aged two, when Mummy was the core of his life.

Their only contact since mid-December has been two brief phone calls and one email in which James has made light of the ordeal of skiing night and day across Antarctica pulling a 70 kilo sledge. On his blog, he has been careful to include greetings and stories for his son: "He did one about Ben doing a pooh in the snow – for a five-year-old that's hilarious."

Her remarks in return to Cracknell have been little light nothings about swimming lessons and the builders. Before Cracknell went they had discussed whether he would be told any bad news from home. "Did he want to know if his parents were ill? What if the baby arrived early? Should I get a message to him if Croyde was crushed by a Christmas tree? We tried to make a joke out of it but I had to know what to tell him. His answer each time was: 'I can't get home any sooner, so it is better not to know.'"

One of their 'what ifs?' nearly became a reality when, after a day of rushing around, Beverley thought she had gone into labour at 30 weeks. She went straight to her parents-in-law's house who put her to bed with a hot water bottle and, next day, she felt better. The GP reassured her that the contractions were just muscular spasms, so she's glad to have kept that worry to herself.

Yet five years ago, when they decided to start a family, Turner never have imagined that she would be spending so much time as a single parent. They were a two career couple, so busy that they couldn't see each other for ten weeks before their wedding. Having modelled before reading English (and getting a First) at Manchester Unversity, she was working as a television presenter, reporting on Formula1 races and basketball. Cracknell was training for the Athens Olympics.

When he returned from his victory, Croyde was 10 months old and scarcely recognised his father. But if Turner had hoped her husband would suddenly settle down having won his second gold medal, she was sorely mistaken. Focusing on a goal was easy compared with the dilemma for every sportsman: should he retire from competition? If he did, what else was he going to do? For years, everything had been decided for him down to his diet and schedule: suddenly he was at sea. And that's where he ended up.

Looking back, they can both now see that the Atlantic Rowing Race in 2005/6, was a way of avoiding the future, and gaining time to think. Maybe it was irresponsible of him to risk his life, in a tiny boat on the ocean, but it proved the end of one phase of his life and the start of the next one. "That race came so soon after James' time as an Olympian, and was in his own environment of a rowing boat, so I think he felt he had to win at all costs. At that time he hadn't worked out what he was going to do, but he's much more settled now. He's created a new career out of his hobbies: writing and commentating. Now he has set up his own sports marketing company, Threshold."

While he was sorting out his work, home life was becoming increasingly attractive. A small child, who clings to his mother, can be difficult for an absent father to appreciate. Cracknell has found he has more of a role in the life of his son as he gets older. He has started taking him to swimming and rugby lessons although, much to Turner's amusement, Croyde says sports are "boring"; he prefers drama.

She, meanwhile, has stopped competing with her husband and has cut back on television presenting which takes her away from home. "You can't have two people rushing around when you have a child," she says. " It's puts strain on the marriage". Instead she is taking a course in psychotherapy and is hoping to finish the second draft of her novel by the time the new baby arrives at the end of February. The book is about marriage and deception, and features a sportsman – but she is quick to point out that he is not married to the central character.

"I had to include a sportsman because I know so much about the many layers of their personalities," she says. She used to swim competitively herself and her brother, Adrian, was an Olympian. None the less, her husband's fanatical desire to win, continues to surprise her. "We used to joke about the self-loathing that must motivate him."

The race to the South Pole will not be his last. Already he is planning a cycling race across America next year – this time with his family in tow, in a Winnebago. But his attitude to winning is changing, she believes. Ben Fogle had been ill with the flesh-eating parasite Leishmaniasis just before they set off so they know their chances of beating the Norwegians were always going to be slim.

"I just hope he gets a sense of satisfaction and renewed appreciation of the earth and how beautiful it is from doing this. He can tick off another box. I don't think it will matter to him whether he wins or not" But adds Turner – "it is James we are talking about so we can't be sure of that."